


The Troll Princess

by ShannonPhillips



Category: Fairy Tales & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-23
Updated: 2007-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-25 05:42:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1634588
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShannonPhillips/pseuds/ShannonPhillips
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A "slantwise" take on East of the Sun, West of the Moon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Troll Princess

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sister Coyote (sister_coyote)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sister_coyote/gifts).



 

 

He wasn't much good anyway, that handsome prince: all he wanted in a woman was a pretty face to do the washing-up. Just another silent decorative tool like all the others that filled his enchanted castle, a pair of quiet hands going about her work without a word of praise or blame. Really he'd prefer it if she never even looked him in the face. Well, that's not me, it's never been me, and better he found out sooner than later.

For one thing that honker of mine was never going to be overlooked. Three yards long, they called it, which isn't true, but what can you do. My mother always told me to be proud of where I come from: my father had the nose, and his mother before him, and all the rulers of our frozen kingdom. The family profile is on our money. "They're just racist against trolls, honey," Mamma said, after. "They're ugly on the inside, just you remember that."

Ugly on the inside. He said I couldn't wash his stupid shirt because I wasn't Christian. No, I couldn't wash it because I'm a _princess_ , I'd never done a piece of laundry in my life. You can't just wash wax, I know that now: dunk it in hot water and scrub at it and you end up with a big messy stain all melted into the fibers. You need to pick at it, patiently, when it's cold, until you've chipped it all away.

I went after him with a girl's hot passion, I melted for him, I scrubbed my heart raw against him. I got over him with a woman's cold and careful anger, chipping, chipping at the love until none of it was left.

Then I took stock. She had my fiancé. I had her golden apple, her golden spinning wheel, her golden carding comb. Weird collection. The comb and the wheel go together, obviously, but what's the apple got to do with spinning? I don't think she'd ever stopped to wonder what these things were for, why they'd come to her, what she could do with them; people gave her things because she was pretty, and she gave them away because she was silly, and in the end she's got a husband who will probably beat her and I've got my own small fortune in impractical household objects. Probably you could use the comb and the wheel to spin yourself a skein of golden thread, and I bet if you buried the apple and waited for a year and a day you'd have yourself a golden tree. If you chopped down the tree you could build a loom, and then you could weave your golden thread into a shining dress fit for a wedding to the Sun Himself. He lives just west of here.

But that's about as far as I got down that line of reasoning before I realized it would be a lot simpler just to melt the whole golden kit and caboodle down into ingots, and buy myself a first-class ticket to Copenhagen. I'm sick of arranged marriages and endless winters, and I don't care what my parents think. In the big city they have plastic surgeons, and I've got an appointment for a nose job. After that, we'll see. I'm going to visit the museums, maybe get my picture taken beside that famous mermaid statue. I'm going to spend a day at a spa. Denmark and the troll kingdom haven't had official diplomatic relations for a long time now, but I heard their prince recently got divorced. I know a little bit about what that's like. Maybe I'll send him a courier, see if he wants to have me over for dinner; and if one of us knocks over a candlestick, why we'll just laugh and laugh and let the servants clean it up.

 


End file.
